


The Scabs of Wounds

by Black_Knight



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-18 22:34:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Knight/pseuds/Black_Knight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You worked for Peter."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scabs of Wounds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [randomizer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomizer/gifts).



“You worked for Peter.” Alicia’s standing behind her desk, tense, angry. She’d called Kalinda in and kicked Cary out the second she got back to Lockhart Gardner after speaking with Eli at Peter’s campaign headquarters.

“Indira Starr. Right.” Kalinda has a slightly rueful smile on her face.

Alicia leans forward, hands on the desk. “You _worked_ for _Peter_.”

“No, I didn’t. I did it for you,” Kalinda says calmly.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Alicia asks, triumphantly, the lawyer who’s scored the winning point on cross-examination, and Kalinda’s eyes narrow in recognition. She’s seen Alicia on cross enough times.

She starts slowly, “I didn’t tell you, because it would have been awkward–”

“Awkward!”

“And this needed to be fixed. I don’t tell you every time I fix something for you.”

“So you admit you’re keeping secrets. Again.”

“I don’t want gratitude,” Kalinda says in measured tones. “I know how that would pain you, especially with this one.”

Alicia definitely doesn’t want to think about all the times she knows Kalinda’s helped her. She retreats to her original point: “You. Worked for. Peter.”

“I only worked on the story that affected you. As soon as that was done, I walked away.” When Alicia doesn’t respond, Kalinda says wearily, “Ask Eli.”

At that, Alicia flashes back to Eli’s words, his querulous voice as he complained, “Can’t you ask Kalinda to help me again? I need her on this!”

Alicia sits down, calmer now. She’d been so thunderstruck at Eli’s revelation that Kalinda had been the investigator on the Indira Starr story that she hadn’t really paid attention to the rest of his hysterical ranting. Eli being Eli.

“That’s not necessary.”

Kalinda stares at her. “But–”

“No. He already told me. I understand now.” Kalinda’s still staring, so Alicia adds, “We’re fine.”

“Because Eli told you.” Kalinda shakes her head.

“What?”

“You’ve questioned my reasons for helping you before, but you’ve never questioned that I was helping you until now.” Kalinda looks away from Alicia. “I’d ask if you’re ever going to trust me again, except that you never did.”

They’re ripping at the scabs of wounds now, and Alicia’s angry all over again. “I _did_ , and you betrayed it–”

“However you found out about my sleeping with your husband, you believed it immediately–”

“It was true!”

“–you didn’t even have to confront me about it. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind.”

Alicia’s struck at that. Kalinda turns to go, but Alicia calls her back and gestures for her to sit. It’s ridiculous for her to feel guilty, but somehow she does.

“Only because it happened in the past. I never would’ve believed Andrew Wiley if he’d said it was after we became friends.”

“But today–”

“We’re not in the same place we were then. Now I know you’ve lied to me.”

Kalinda looks at her without flinching. “Tell me you would have answered any differently.”

“I–” Alicia starts, and trails off. She visualizes that confrontation in her mind, as she has dozens of times before, but for the first time she imagines their roles reversed. And she realizes she would have lied too. These are the lies that keep society functioning. You don’t tell someone her haircut is awful, and you don’t tell your coworker that you once slept with her husband. And you don’t presume to tell someone, whether friend or coworker or acquaintance, about what her husband has done, or what she should do about her husband. God knows Alicia has had enough of that in the last few years. Are she and Kalinda the only two people left in this world of Facebook and Twitter and TMI friends who understand the value of being reserved, keeping your own counsel and your own secrets, and respecting others’ boundaries? Even when she’d made Kalinda promise to be forthcoming, she’d never meant that Kalinda should share her life story, just _something_. And to be honest, when Alicia did have a question.

“I wouldn’t have,” Alicia admits. “But I also wouldn’t have befriended you.”

Kalinda visibly sags at that, her eyes open wounds. And shiny...suspiciously shiny, and Alicia is heartshot. She sees more of the hypothetical scenario play out in a flash, and rushes to tell Kalinda, “But I don’t befriend people anyway.”

“I don’t befriend people either,” Kalinda says. “Normally.”

“Why did you?”

Kalinda shrugs and gazes away. But Alicia keeps playing out her hypothetical scenario in her head, and realizes, “I would’ve still let you befriend me.” She hesitates. “I wouldn’t normally, but–” 

But Kalinda, with her wit and her flipping people off and stomping down the hall in her boots, expressive dark eyes and strong jaw, jewel-tone blouses and endless leather jackets, silver rings on different fingers every day. Magnetic. Devilishly attractive, and what a paradoxical phrase that is to apply to someone who’s always been her knight errant. But both of these things about Kalinda are true at once. And underneath, that impossibly strong innate connection. Turning away from an ordinary sort of friendship would have been one thing, but turning away from _this_ was quite another.

Kalinda’s still looking away, but Alicia sees it all now. Of course, _this_ , and the terrible, awful coincidence of having slept with the other’s husband years before, but it could be compartmentalized, didn’t mean they shouldn’t become friends. Maybe a stupid rationalization for playing with fire, but understandable and worth it in the face of _this_. So Kalinda hadn’t stayed away, and Alicia wouldn’t have either.

Alicia’d let the past matter too much, in all the wrong ways, and lost sight of what her relationship with Kalinda had been. Her loyal Kalinda cast as Judas in her mind – if it hadn’t all been so painful to live through, Alicia would laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Part of the reason she’d been so cruel to Kalinda is because she’d thought it was the only way to get past Kalinda’s famous walls to hurt her as much as she’d hurt Alicia. Now she sees how wrong she was. She’s already inside the walls, holding this woman’s heart in her hand, and all she ever has to do to hurt her is squeeze even a little.

Alicia feels something essential within her finally heal. And she doesn’t want to squeeze. When Kalinda finally looks back at her, Alicia reaches her hand out on the desk, open, palm up. “I’m sorry.”

It’s not at all the sort of gesture that Kalinda is used to, but then neither is Alicia. Kalinda puts her hand into Alicia’s and grips it firmly, and they feel the jolt of electricity shoot up their arms. Alicia’s pulse quickens, and she can see the future as clearly as she just saw the hypothetical past: Her and Kalinda going out for drinks that Friday night, ending up back at her place, and that same grip as she pulls Kalinda into her bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> I promised randomizer that I'd participate in Yuletide with her, and then missed the deadline. So I went back to sweetjamielee's 2012 Lockhart Gardner Ficathon and pulled a couple of randomizer's unfilled Kalicia prompts. This one is for "Alicia/Kalinda: Alicia's apology." Happy Yuletide, random!


End file.
